Wednesday, September 2, 2015

September On Pine Island

From this month's Nautical Mile Newspaper:

Welcome to September, the very best month to
fish the flats around Pine Island and Matlacha as far as I’m concerned.
Everything you could possibly want to catch in the shallow water will be here
in force and should stick around well into the fall.

Tarpon season is still in full swing as long
as you’re looking for the smaller ones. The huge migratory fish have
moved along and won’t be back until next spring, but a few big stragglers can
still be picked off in Charlotte Harbor and off the Gulf beaches. The
real action is happening in the dark waters of Matlacha Pass where hundreds of
resident juveniles pop up at sunrise every calm morning. These ten to
twenty pounders are my favorite fish and the perfect fly rod species.
They spend the entire fight in the air and can be boated quickly without a lot
of stress to both the tarpon and the angler.

Redfish are already pouring onto the flats in
big schools as they get ready to spawn. While there aren’t any negative
low tides this month, which are always the best tailing conditions, we’ll still
have long stretches of skinny water in the evenings when feeding reds are easy
to spot. Pine Island Sound has dozens of excellent flats but the huge
stretch of water just north of Pineland Marina is often Ground Zero for
schooling redfish. I’ve seen them so thick out there that they look like
a solid blob of orange coming towards my skiff. These big schools aren’t
an everyday sight but when it happens they’re easy to spot and even easier to
catch. Throw almost anything in front of them and you’ll get a strike.

Sea trout made a nice return in the middle of
August and the cooler mornings of September give us even better conditions for
this easy to catch gamefish. Just about every angler in Southwest Florida
knows that a Cajun Cork with a live shrimp or Gulp under it is both magic on
trout and effortless to use. They also love to eat flies and are a great
species to target for beginners. An inexpensive 8-weight and a handful of
easy to tie Clouser Minnows will nail trout all day long. Once again, the
Pineland area is a great place to find these guys but you’ll want to get in a
little deeper water than where you’d be searching for reds. Three to five
feet over the grass and sandy potholes is perfect, especially on rising tides
during the morning hours.

Finally, snook season is once again open here
on the west coast of Florida. For those of you who are new to the
area, keep in mind that you’ll need an additional $10 stamp on your saltwater
license if you want to keep one of these fish. Snook are some of the more
heavily regulated species in Florida and rightly so. Just taste one
that’s been properly grilled and you’ll know why. You have to work harder
than ever to land a slot sized snook, which are between 28 to 33 inches and
you’re only allowed one per day. Even if you’re not interesting in
keeping any, most of our shorelines will hold them. I love working a
topwater lure like a Zara Spook along the mangroves to get that explosive
strike, especially at high tide, but a baitwell full of live pilchards is more
effective than anything.

So that’s
September in a nutshell, lots of fish and cooler weather. And that’s not
even the best part. This is also one of the slowest months of the year
for tourism and the majority of our snowbird residents are still up
north. If you’re out on the flats during most weekdays you’ll often have
the water all to yourself. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Welcome to the Pine Island Angler. This blog is published from my home base on beautiful Matlacha, Florida where I run my guiding business Wildfly Charters. I started this site to provide regularly updated news about salt water flats fishing throughout Southwest Florida, the Keys, and many other Stateside and Caribbean locations. As a full time guide since 1995 I'm always looking for that next undiscovered spot or secret fly that will lead me to even better fishing and I'm happy to share what I find here on this site. I welcome any of your comments on all of my posts. Feel free to contact me with any questions by e-mail at gmckee1@hotmail.com or call me directly at (239)565-2960. Capt. Gregg McKee